Advertising has become pervasive in today's society. Traditional advertising methods include television, radio, and publications, while more recent methods include internet-based advertisements. Regardless of the method employed, businesses utilize advertising to introduce consumers to their products and to encourage consumers to purchase their products.
Because a consumer might not purchase the product for days or even months after hearing or seeing an advertisement, most advertising methods, such as television, rely on innovative and creative advertisements that consumers will remember when making the purchase. Other methods for encouraging consumers to purchase a certain product include product demonstrations (e.g., prerecorded advertisements and in-person demonstrations) typically located in a area close to where the product is located. Short product demonstrations and advertisements are often prerecorded on a video tape or DVD and then played on a conventional video player in a location proximate to where the products are sold or purchased. While prerecorded video and in-person product demonstrations may escalate product sales, they have certain drawbacks, e.g. labor costs associated with in-person demonstrations. Although labor costs may be avoided by using a prerecorded video, the video may require manual and periodic intervention.
Conventional in-store electronic advertising devices often clutter the shopping area and compete for the shopper's attention. In many instances, the prerecorded video advertisements on a video tape or DVD are played continuously on a conventional video player at a location where shoppers to walk by, even if they are not interested in purchasing the consumer goods. This becomes intrusive, as well as boring to the shopper to see and hear the same old message repeated constantly. It is also very annoying to the store clerks who have to hear the intrusive ads all day long. In some instances, the store clerks may pull the plug on the in-store electronic media to keep from being further irritated. Most shoppers do not want to have their shopping experience interrupted by long sales spiels, but welcome learning about the reasons to choose and purchase a particular brand or product.
Some in-store electronic advertising devices are equipped with sensing systems that attempt to measures a detectable feature or characteristic associated with a detected shopper such as gender, race, ethnic background, age, nationality, height, and weight of the person or characteristic associated with a detected shopper and retrieves and displays stored promotional segments that are based on the detected features or characteristics of the shopper, rather than advertisements related to the products at the point at which the advertised product is displayed (Point-Of-Product).
There are several patents that are directed to various in-store electronic marketing and video advertising systems.
Vela et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,882,724, discloses a communication system for a marketing area wherein message relay units are mounted on shopping carts and transported about the marketing area by a shopper. The message relay units provide audio and/or visual messages transmitted by a light signal generating system and a master computer at a control center. The light signals are transmitted over optical channels to predetermined subdivisions of the marketing area. The marketing area is divided into “zones” which are dedicated to receiving different types of messages. One group of zones are dedicated to receiving audio message productions, another group of zones are dedicated to receiving video message productions, another group of zones are dedicated to the reception of both audio and video messages, and still another group of zones are dedicated to the reception of traveling word messages. The messages that are transmitted vary depending upon which “zone” that the cart having the relay unit is within. The visually displayed messages include a list of items available for purchase, a graphics display of the floor plan of the marketing area and the merchandise display facilities therein, a video picture which may be a product or item available for purchase in the “zone” of the marketing area and a traveling word message.
Begum et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,420,606, discloses an electronic paperless couponing system in which a store provides shoppers with an electronic communications device coordinated with an in-store electronic marketing system or coupon interface module via wireless data transmissions. The communications device has a display screen for display of a graphic of a redemption coupon that represents a discount for an item in the store available for purchase. The electronic communications device may be incorporated into a portable unit, mounted on a shopping cart or basket, or can be a stand alone unit designed exclusively to provide electronic coupons to prospective purchasers. The communications unit has a selection button for prospective shoppers to enter the selection of the coupon indicating the user's desire to redeem the coupon and a memory to record the selection until the shopper reaches the checkout counter and the discount is deducted from the purchases when the item subject to the discount has been purchased. Begum et al teaches that in its preferred embodiment the couponing system utilizes standard bar code data and product identification numbers to coordinate the coupon issuance with the product sales accounting using existing store or manufacturer accounting systems in conjunction with the system's computer that issues, records and redeems the discount coupons.
Klayh, U.S. Published Application 2003/0103644 discloses a method for presenting targeted advertising to a specific identified person or class of persons that utilizes a display apparatus, similar to a system for electronic games in which scores achieved on the games are transmitted to one or a hierarchy of computers in which a winner is determined. At least one computer stores a player code associated with player credits. The players insert credit cards into the games which read the player codes, send the codes to a computer, obtain verification signals from the computer and are thereby enabled. The computer also stores handicap values associated with players and/or the games, and modifies the scores by the handicap values. The computer can also download advertising, winner or other messages to specific ones or all the games for display, and can cause the games played to be modified or changed. The system employs regional servers, each located at a separate regional data center, and each having a memory containing a corresponding database that stores not only score data, but also values of money on deposit to be credited against the playing of a game, handicaps of players and/or games, and also parameters and content relating to advertising, premiums, etc., and can also store specialized data relating to parameters used in a game which loaded by a decision support server from data stored in a database with which it communicates. Validation and redemption terminals in communication with each regional server include a card reader and preferably a bar code reader, and a smart card reader/writer, or the equivalent, coupled to a printer. The card read by the redemption terminal is a specific person or class of person identifier, the identification being stored by the magnetic strip or chip on the card. Alternatively, persons can be identified by other means, such as by voice recognizer, palm or finger print detector, iris reader, etc. The printer is used to print receipts and coupons, preferably with a bar code. In operation, games, advertising and parameters relating to loyalty points and/or coupons are downloaded under control of the decision support server and distributed to the regional servers, or alternately, the games, parameters and/or advertising are stored at the arcade on local mass storage devices. The advertisements are preferably written within a shell, with software “hooks” between the advertisements and shell. The body of an unidentified player standing adjacent to a regional server may be detected, but if no service has been selected by the unidentified player, a different type and sequence of advertisements is run, which is different from the type and sequence shown to a person or class of persons whose identity has been detected and verified, the later advertisements being based on one of the target indicators matched to the identified person or class of person.